If we all seek ‘answers’ – then there must be ‘questions’ from which answers would of course result. Instead, we are often busy seeking ways to be heard – rather than listening. And if listening for the best answers is the better approach, shouldn’t we be seeking the BEST ‘questions’ (like that one for instance)?. For anything to change, some things have to be decided first:

Who gets to decide (representation)

How will they(we) decide (objectivity)

Who gets the benefits of the change (impacts)

When will the changes take effect (priority)

And, there are certainly more questions…

In their recent book ‘How The Wise Decide‘, authors Aaron Sandoski and Bryn Zeckhauser provide six fundamental principles that are consistently used by the successful leaders whom they studied. Their observations confirmed that these six concepts are both true and useful for anyone, universally:

Go to the Source

Fill a Room with Barbarians

Conquer the Fear of Risk

Make Vision Your Daily Guide

Listen with Purpose

Be Transparent

If those are true for business, how would they work for government, city councils, non-profits, fraternal or religious groups, or even our individual thought patterns? That is another good question. How would our relationships, communities, or nations work if we were consistently guided in those principals, in that process, and toward the proven benefit of ‘success’? What core questions can give us those answers, those results?.

The conviction to find those questions is a challenge I embraced after reflecting on broken conversations, broken relationships, broken processes, broken companies, broken churches, broken governance, and the broken lives that lay in the wake of all those patterns of broken thinking. Again, I do not wish to lay claim, just reflect that in my own parallel experience I too am a believer, witness, and recipient of the missed opportunities of the past.

However, I am also now aware of the unlimited power that is possible in the future by these truths and the ‘profound’ questions that could change our way of thinking – about our beliefs, about each other, about our world.

Turns out that it may take only six simple and familiar questions to change our way of thinking – for good. Since four questions form the core process, I have called it ASK4™ – for now. The other two questions relate to us as people – on which the process depends and for whom the benefits accrue. The questions can be used as a way to:

Make Vision My Daily Guide – goal-focused (hurdle-aware)

Fill a Room with Barbarians – relish others’ opinions

Conquer the Fear of Risk – allow for unlimited outcomes

Go to the Source – drop my ‘because’/get to the root cause

Listen with Purpose – retain vision while allowing for options

Be Transparent – accept my limits and seek the highest good

By viewing the world through the simple 6-question lens, it is possible to easily and consistently engage these principles in any situation to:

Normalize the perspective – to enable any participant at any level in any culture/language to describe THEIR situation/need/or offer

Formalize the process – for collecting everyone’s feedback so that forward progress can be initiated/tracked/completed/measured

Legitimize participants – by evaluating and then endorsing those thought leaders who cooperate to craft viable solutions

Organize involvement– so that everyone can share in the creation of viable solutions

– so that we all can…

Realize – these same cooperative benefits, globally

As now defined ASK4™ is useful as a tool for process improvement. It can also become a powerful online tool for ‘crowd-sourcing’. It does change our conversations, it will change our collaboration, it can change our consensus, or even CHANGE – our world.

We’ll see…

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.